Tag: Paris

The only question that should be raised in response to the Brussels attack – why is this happening?

If you think the answer can be reduced to Islamic extremism or a clash of civilizations – you are ignoring the reality that much of the extremism which encourages violent terrorism in the Middle East emanates from countries that are closest to the US – Saudi Arabia. Not to mention, ISIS, which has claimed responsibility, is made up of primarily foreign fighters and funded by the Gulf states.

Also, the existence of ISIS, like al Qaeda is a product of western support for these types of groups. Regime change, as the US has pressured, has caused the sort of imbalance in the ME that allows for increased terrorism at home and abroad.

Islamists have been largely propped up by democracies in order to justify foreign invasions and regime change – only where it is convenient.

The notion that Islam is more prone to violence is incorrect. Furthermore we have to differentiate between terrorist groups who seek to confuse the public and cause political upheaval, and militias, like Hezbollah, which seek to confront nation-states like Israel militarily, instead of arbitrary attacks and an “Islamic” agenda. Islamists focus on theocracy where as Muslim militias aren’t necessarily – they simply seek the sovereignty of their land.

Until Western countries stop double-dealing with terrorists in order to justify foreign escapades; until countries like Saudi Arabia are isolated; we will continue to witness terrorist attacks like those in Brussels, Ankara, Istanbul, Beirut & Paris.

We must learn to separate the nationalist, and rather secular conflicts between the Arab-Palestinian & Israel factions from the ideological war being waged both by extremist networks of violent persuasions (al Qaeda; ISIS) which pollute the discourse with extreme religious rhetoric. National sovereignty, human rights and self-determination supersede regime-type. Until this is realized, conflict will ensue in the Middle East; and violence will be exported. If the US & its cohorts continue foreign campaigns aimed at forcing regime-change under the premise of “democratization”, there is more reason to believe that balancing could occur. But as the Obama Doctrine has demonstrated, this hasn’t been entirely the course or agenda of the US – in fact, since the Bush Administration, it seems the US has been pursuing a less “hawkish” course.

The US must realize that its cozy relationship with Israel & Saudi Arabia are the primary stimulators of global terrorism. It fuels fanaticism; directly through Saudi Arabia; indirectly through occupation & socio-economic paralysis. If the US wishes to maintain the role of global hegemony & leader, it is not a matter of “morality” but of “rationality” that the US separates itself from the co-dependent relationship it has established with these two religiously charged nation-states.

Four years later, in 2014, with the country now under military rule, Youssef announced his show “Al-Bernameg” had become too dangerous to produce. He was repeatedly harassed by lawsuits and arrested, and he feared for his family’s safety.

On 1 January 2013, the daily Al-masry Al-youm reported that an Egyptian prosecutor was investigating Bassem Youssef on charges of maligningPresidentMohammed Morsi, whose office claimed that Youssef’s show was “circulating false news likely to disturb public peace and public security and affect the administration.”[42]

On 30 March 2013, an arrest warrant was issued for Youssef for allegedly insulting Islam and Morsi. The move was seen by opponents as part of an effort to silence dissent against Morsi’s government.[44]

The hypocrisy would be appalling were it not so functional: the biggest impediment to both the reform of Islam and peace in the Middle East that Americans have the ability to remove is our support for a militant Jewish ideology that few Arabs and Muslims have ever accepted.

The 9/11 Commission concluded that US policy in Palestine was part of the reason for the attacks, but that analysis was whittled down to a few sentences– even as the head of the commission said that the Iraq war was launched to protect Israel. (And Condi Rice said the war would provide “strategic relief” to Israel and Colin Powell said it was dreamed up by the Zionist thinktank the Jewish Institute for National Security Affairs).

And this blog– for which the Iraq war was the core issue– began after my brother told me that he had demonstrated against the Vietnam War but his Jewish newspaper said this war might be good for Israel; and this blog got pushed out the door at the New York Observer, then the Nation Institute.

Bernie Sanders and I both opposed the Iraq war. Most American Jews opposed that war. But Sanders’s assertion that there is a war for the soul of Islam is hollow, cheap and condescending so long as he and the mainstream Jewish community continue to suppress the war for the soul of Judaism.

That war is happening all around us in the margins; but the west will not be able to rid the earth of ISIS and the radical Islamism that we are told is not Islam (believe me, I can’t wait for their demise) till we conduct a similar scathing inventory of Jewish political beliefs.

Yesterday James North and I wrote here that we’re not monocausal; even if there was justice in Palestine it would not end Islamist violence. I stand by that point. But the ultimate question is the one Bernie Sanders raised last night, What can we do to end the religious element of the conflicts in the Middle East? And the answer is that Jews must end their support for Zionism, which has turned out to be religious, fascistic and militant, and is fueling rage across the Middle East and further.

How long can Jews not have this conversation? Hannah Arendt wrote in 1944 that opposition to Zionism drew on great understandings: the “realization of the fatal, utopian hyperbole of the demand for a Jewish commonwealth and a rejection of the idea of making all Jewish politics in Palestine dependent on the protection of great powers.”

It was an American problem then and it’s an American problem now. We have set aside our own secular values when it comes to the Middle East. We should stop lecturing Muslims about their backward ideas till we reckon with our own.

The illegal U.S.-led invasion of Iraq led to the deaths of at least one million people, destabilized the entire region, and created extreme conditions in which militant groups like al-Qaeda spread like wildfire, eventually leading to the emergence of ISIS.

In Afghanistan, the ongoing U.S.-led war and occupation — which the Obama administration just prolonged for a second time — has led to approximately a quarter of a million deaths and has displaced millions of Afghans.

The disastrous U.S.-led NATO intervention in Libya destroyed the government, turning the country into a hotbed for extremism and allowing militant groups like ISIS to spread west into North Africa. Thousands of Libyans have been killed, and hundreds of thousands made refugees.

In Yemen, the U.S. and other Western nations are arming and backing the Saudi-led coalition that is raining down bombs, including banned cluster munitions, on civilian areas, pulverizing the poorest country in the Middle East. And, once again — the story should now be familiar — thousands have been killed and hundreds of thousands have been displaced.

“We have reiterated that the Syrian future will be decided by Syrian people alone,” the Russian foreign minister said, including “the destination of Mr. Assad and any other politician in this country.”